


Tall Tales of the Western Wilds

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Mild Blood, Minor Character Death, Poe Tells a Story, Rey Kenobi, Reylo - Freeform, Reylo Fanfiction Anthology, Ring in the Reylo, Skywalker Ranch, Unreliable Narrator, Wild West AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:03:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8990938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: They say there's three sides to every story: his side, her side, and the truth. No matter which you choose to believe, Ragin' Rey Kenobi was the greatest bounty hunter there ever was.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vivien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivien/gifts).



> Written for the 2016 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology gift fic exchange, Ring in the Reylo!

They tell lots of tall tales about the Wild West. The stories about the Skywalker family--some true, some embellished, some false--were among the favorites of children growing up at their mothers’ knees and of the old men in the saloons who had braved the wilds in their day.

Many claimed to know the truth, but few truly did. The children would tumble about in the gritty dirt, playing at cowhands and Natives and fighting over who got to portray Ragin’ Rey Kenobi or infamous blackadder Kylo Ren, pretending they could use the Force to guide their imaginary pistol shots.  

 

A young woman walked into a bar in an old, dusty town. Glasses clinked, coins jangled, cards were shuffled while the town relaxed for an evening.

It was the sort of town where you expected tumbleweeds to blow by even though it wasn’t the correct area of the country. An old ranching town, hit hard in the aftermath of war. Maz’s Tavern had been there for centuries, it seemed. The local watering hole, run by the same woman her whole life. Old Maz knew everything and everyone, and served everyone from the mayor on down to the county crook who’d be back in the calaboose before long.

The young woman didn’t know that, though. She was a dreamer, a youngin’ with bright eyes and a bushy tail if ever there were one. Her former mentor had told her to search out what remained of the Skywalker family out west, to be trained in the ways of the Force. She’d heard some of the legends beyond her cryptic hints from a friend of a friend of a colleague on a job back east three jobs ago, and she’d heard from an old cowhand on the last ranch that Maz’s Tavern was the place to be out here. Takodana County had the best water supply and greenest grass for miles, until you got out to D’Qar County, where one of the famous Skywalker ranches was.

An old man was holding court at the bar. He had once been incredibly handsome, though his smile and charm had been unfazed by time. His dark curls had run to grey, but his eyes still twinkled with the presence of a much younger man. Poe Dameron was his name, a veteran of both the war and the ranches. The young woman approached the bar, and Poe gestured for her to have a seat. The older man was conversing with a woman close to his age, though slightly younger. She too had been handsome in her day, though her dark locks had also run to grey. They had been boon companions on the ranch and during the war. She smiled kindly at the newcomer, also gesturing to the seat next to them as they waited for Maz to come ‘round. The young woman quietly took in her surroundings, not wishing to interrupt the conversation.

“Mayor Organa’s bound to have a say about that. Ain’t nothing going to get past her,” said Poe.

“A woman? As mayor?” asked the young woman.

“You must be new in town,” Jess said with a smile.

“Ma’am, you don’t mess with the Mayor ‘round these parts. Mayor Organa is a good woman. Tough as nails, but kind as spring rain-- when you deserve it.” With that, Poe winked at Maz, who handed the young woman a mug of beer.

“What’s your name, daughter?” asked Maz, nodding at her.

“Aisling is my name. Ofedya Calrissian told me to come out here,” she said. Maz and Poe exchanged a knowing look, and Jess sighed into her beer.

Undeterred, Aisling continued. “I’m looking for the remnants of the Skywalker family,” she said more quietly than how she had confidently stated her name.

“They’re gone,” said Jess. “Only the legends are left now, and Mayor Organa. And she won’t talk about her family.”

Poe sighed, and Maz gazed intently at the newcomer. A moment of silence passed over the group, then Maz looked at Poe and nodded ever so slightly. He met her gaze, then turned to Aisling.

“Tell you what, kid. I’ll tell you a tale of the Skywalkers, and if you still want to have a look out towards the ranch after hearing the story, we’ll help you get there.”

“Thank you, Mr..?”

“Poe. Poe Dameron. This here is Jess Pava, and that’s old Maz.”

“Much obliged,” said Aisling, nodding at the ladies.

“Here it goes, kid. You ever heard of Ragin’ Rey Kenobi?”

“I’ve heard a few of the tales. She was a rancher and then an outlaw, no?”

“Ragin’ Rey Kenobi was the best bounty hunter there was. Some said her uncle had abandoned her as a child. Some said she’d been betrayed by a lover. Some said it had been a heist gone bad. Whatever the cause, Ragin’ Rey Kenobi said her goodbyes to her friends on the ranch, left town and disappeared into the desert to find Luke Skywalker. Back then she had been known as just Rey.” _When she returned, she returned with her own shiny new double holster of pistols and with the new sobriquet and last name_ , Poe chose not to say. _She was never the same again_.   

“Yeah, she was the fiercest there ever was.”

Poe put down his beer emphatically, as if to emphasize his point with the _thunk_ of the mug on wood.

A hush fell over the bar. The regulars at Maz’s knew when a story was coming. The young woman was too stunned for words.

“They had been fighting a new group of bandits out on the smaller ranch, out in D’Qar County. Rey was just a ranch hand back then, before the war really broke out. The ranch had been attacked, cattle slaughtered, one of the fields completely destroyed. Before that, they had torn apart Hosnian County. Just laid it bare. Cattle completely gone, fields burned and trampled, you name it. Babies crying in their mothers’ arms with nothing to eat, their daddies gone out to fight the rambunctious black hats. Thankfully they didn’t hit the ranch too bad at first, but everyone knew they’d be back.”

“Why were these bandits attacking all the ranches?” asked Aisling.

“It went back a long time. Old feuds, bad blood, ancient history. The bandits thought they had a better way of doing things. They thought that they’d bring order to the ranches, band together for a better future. But their definition of ‘order’ involved mostly domination and destruction. They were the remnants, the followers of an older group. They wanted to be just like them, but even more powerful. They called themselves the First Order.”

Aisling shuddered. She had heard tales growing up about the battles between the ranchers and the bandits, and the First Order were legendary for their ruthlessness.

“The First Order spared no expense in their search for old Luke Skywalker, who had inherited his family’s ranch. He had left the day to day operations to his sister, the now mayor Organa, and the ranch had flourished, employing hundreds and producing the finest cattle and crops this side of Corellia. Luke was a powerful Force user, a brilliant rancher. He had grown up on a farm out in Tatooine, and after his aunt and uncle died he came out this way. Fought in the first war, trained in the ways of the Force, became a legend and disappeared. He had been spending months away from the ranch, heading out into the desert to look for who knows what, old relics, lost Jedi, no one really knew. He had a bad run in with the First Order and then completely disappeared.

Well, the First Order didn’t take too well to that. Kept on searching for him for years. Ragin’ Rey Kenobi was taken in by Mayor Organa-- we called her the General back then. Started working out on the ranch. She had a real knack for dealing with the horses. She and Finn became fast friends. Finn saved my life, you see, Ms. Aisling. He’s a good man, my partner in all the best ways. He had been taken in by the First Order when he was a child, but escaped with me. I had been taken captive in a raid, they were going to barter me out for horses and supplies.”

At Aisling’s look of horror, Poe stopped. He gently took her hand and squeezed, looking knowingly at Jess and Maz.

“Hope you don’t mind that, Ms. Aisling. Things were different back then. Much more lawless than they are now. Mayor Organa’s been fighting the good fight for a long time. She’s truly a living legend.”

“She sure is,” echoed Jess. “Taught me just about everything I know. She’s a good woman. Seen too much hardship and sadness in her life.”

“She tells her life story in her eyes,” said Maz. “Child, let me look into your eyes again.”

Startled, Aisling turned to Maz, who cupped her chin in her hand. “Hmm, yes indeed,” she said, mostly to herself. Maz nodded at Aisling, then at Poe, who took a swig of beer and continued his story.

“So anyway, Finn and I escaped from the First Order’s campsite out in Jakku County. We got split up on our way through the desert. I made it back to the ranch just fine, but Finn had a bit of an adventure on the way back. He met Rey at Niima Outpost.The only watering hole for miles, that is. Jakku is rough country, all desert and dry as a bone. She had a rough life out there, watering horses and trying to eke out what she could from travelers passing through. She and Finn had another run in with a First Order raid, escaped with two of the fastest horses who ever lived, and made it out here to the ranch.”

“Not so fast, Poe,” interrupted Maz. “There was a bit more to it than that. Rey would not have become what she did if she hadn’t met Kylo Ren.”

“Kylo Ren?” asked Aisling. “The infamous black hatted bandit?”

“That’s the one,” replied Jess, looking down into her beer. “Awful git,” she muttered, taking a deep swallow.

“You all fought him and the First Order?” Aisling asked.

“Sure did,” said Jess.

“Sure thing,” said Poe. “He wasn’t always like that. He had so much potential before he fell in with the First Order. He would have been a brilliant ranch manager one day,” he said, wistfully.

“Poe and Maz here knew him before he turned bad,” said Jess. “I’m not as forgiving,” she said. “He could have had it all, and chose to throw it all away.”

“He had been swayed by the Dark Side of the Force,” said Poe, once again looking at his beer mug. “The First Order had been after him for a long time. They thought his particular skills would be well suited to their goals. Dueling, raiding, you get the picture. Well, they were right.”

At this, Maz sighed, looking up from wiping out beer mugs and shaking her head.

“He dueled Rey late one winter night while the ranchers were fighting his First Order cronies. Took a bullet to his shoulder and a knife to the face. That was the beginning of the legends about Rey. He had thrown her against a tree and knocked out Finn, slashing him down the back with his knife, but he definitely had the worst of it. Somebody fired a cannon between them. Split a tree down the middle and separated the two of them from the fight. Kylo Ren escaped, and reinforcements arrived to help Rey carry Finn out of there. The First Order retreated, after most of their equipment had been destroyed. They did a lot of damage, but we dealt them quite a blow that night. It took them a long time to recover, but they came back with a vengeance. In between, however, Rey went out to cross the desert and try to find old Luke.”

“You’re forgetting an important part to the story,” Maz mentioned from across the bar, winking at Aisling. “Rey, Finn, and old Han, the Mayor’s late husband, had stopped by here on their way out to the ranch. Rey found Anakin Skywalker’s pistol in my cabinet downstairs while she was here. I told her to keep it, but she refused. Finn took it out to the ranch, to the battle, and that’s what caused the duel with Kylo Ren, you see,” she said, setting down her latest clear beer mug on the bar.

Aisling looked back and forth between the three in shock. “Kylo Ren wanted Anakin Skywalker’s pistol?”

“He sure did,” said Poe. “And he just about killed Rey and Finn to get it.”

“But he didn’t,” added Jess. “Kill them, or get the pistol. He failed pretty miserably at that.”

“He failed at everything the First Order wanted him to do, in the end,” said Poe.

“He did? But I thought he was a villainous black hat?” asked Aisling.

“Oh he was,” said Maz. “Tore through here with his cronies one day like a tornado through a corn field. That was not long before his fight with Rey and Finn. He was furious when he found out about their escape. But he found his way back to himself and his roots, in the end.”

“You forgave him?” Aisling asked, looking down at Maz with wide eyes.

“In a way,” replied Maz. “All is as the Force wills it. I am no Jedi, but sometimes things have to happen in a certain way. Do you think it was mere chance, a roll of the dice that brought you to us today?”

Aisling shook her head, and took a deep swallow of beer.

 _No, indeed_ , she thought. _There’s much more to these people and this town than it seems_.

She smiled at Poe, who was looking at her with concern.

“Tell me about Ragin’ Rey Kenobi,” she said.

 

 


	2. Part Two

They say that there's three sides to every story--his side, her side, and the truth. 

Poe’s version was pretty close to the truth, but of course colored by his own inclinations and feelings about the people involved. Poe loved Mayor Organa like his own mama, and Ragin’ Rey like the little sister he never had. He could never admit to himself what he knew she’d done, though. Nor what really happened with Kylo Ren, whose side went like this: 

To Kylo Ren, though he’d never admit it aloud, Rey was the sun, the moon, and the stars above. From the moment she tried to shoot him with his own granddaddy’s pistol, she was all he ever wanted. 

The child who had been known as Ben Solo growing up learned the tales of the Force, the old ranchers and black hats who had come before, at his own mother’s knee like any other child of the West. His mother had shot-dead more than a few black hats of her own, before, during and after their fights in Alderaan County, which had become part of the desert by then. Leia Organa had grown up there, after old Anakin Skywalker, the famous Force using war hero and rancher, had been shot dead by the first group of bandits that came through. His wife, beautiful Padmé Amidala from a rich family out east, lived just long enough beyond her own gunshot wounds to give birth to twins and send Leia to her best friend’s ranch in Alderaan County to the east and Luke to Anakin’s family’s ranch in Tatooine County to the west. 

After Anakin and Padmé’s deaths, the lawlessness and raiding got that much worse. The groups of bandits started to band together, thinking they owned the Old West, creating their own crime empires like they were the gangs of New York and Boston. 

Leia and Luke grew up separately, not knowing the full details of their family history. They would come to their Force using, ranching legacy as adults, fighting their own battles against the outlaws who destroyed their family ranches. After a while, the biggest band of hooligans calling themselves the Empire, known for wearing all white except for their leaders, was broken up and scattered. Luke and Leia, with her husband and baby boy, settled down on the main Skywalker ranch and set about rebuilding, and learning about the Force. 

Ben Solo was a powerful Force user from the time he was a baby. He had a knack for training his father’s prize horses, and could shoot a pistol almost as well as his father. He was even better at throwing knives. 

He also told tales of an old man in grey walking around the ranch lands, telling him tales about the bandits and Force powers. No one but Ben ever saw the old man, who he called Snoke. 

Ben traveled with his uncle Luke across the arid west, looking for lore about the Force when he got older, and stopped telling his tales about the grey man Snoke. 

Until one day he disappeared, and the First Order raided and attacked Luke Skywalker’s school for youngins. That was the first anyone had heard of Kylo Ren. 

The last time Kylo Ren saw his father, famous horse racer and breaker Han Solo, was during the raid that nearly broke the First Order and right before his famous duel with Rey. Some said he’s the one who shot Han Solo. Others said they had had heated words, then the masked bandit stalked away into the dark. Whatever happened, Han Solo was killed, and his son took the blame. Not long after his father’s killing, Kylo Ren dueled the woman who’d become one of the greatest bounty hunters who ever lived in the woods not too far from his family’s ranch, and became consumed with an overpowering, obsessive love for her. It destroyed Kylo Ren, leaving him a shell of himself. His mentor Snoke allegedly beat him half to death with the back of his own pistol before quite literally throwing him to the wolves in the mountains for failing to deliver the bounties on both his uncle Luke and Ragin’ Rey, as she was known by then. 

The night was dark as the day was long, and whispers blew through the wind.

Ragin’ Rey was the one who pulled him out of the snow, put him on the back of her horse, and delivered him to his mother’s front porch late that bitter cold night.   

Kylo Ren was never heard from again, but the miraculous discovery of the long lost Ben Solo was celebrated by all the townsfolk at Maz’s bar. He never spoke about his time in First Order captivity, as they put it. 

Ragin’ Rey Kenobi shot old Snoke dead the next day, collecting her biggest bounty ever for his head. 


	3. Part Three

Ragin' Rey Kenobi's side went like this:

After her duel with Kylo Ren, which revealed her to also be a powerful Force user, she found old Luke Skywalker up in Ahch-To County, thousands of miles away. It was a green island surrounded by water. She'd never seen its like before. 

Master Luke told her about her grandfather, Obi Wan Kenobi, a former general and Force user, and offered to train her in the old ways. She gave him back his father's pistol, and made her own set, a pistol on each hip. 

She returned southeast to Skywalker Ranch, after blowing holes in half the bandits in the Wild West. The old ways just weren't for her, especially not when there were battles to be fought. Her life had been too scrabbled and hard knock for her to sit quietly and commune with nature when her friends were struggling to survive. 

She came for Kylo Ren late one night, and pointed a pistol straight at his heart.

"Go ahead," he said. “Shoot me. It'd be the best bounty you'd ever collected,” he said. “I'm worth more than half this county combined.” 

She kissed him instead. They loved each other as fiercely as they hated each other. They made love that night in the dust and dirt of an old abandoned saloon, marking each other with their lips the way they had with their knives, and she left him in the morning, heartbroken and lovesick, to blow a hole in his right hand man’s head. Neither one of them was the same after that. 

Ragin’ Rey earned her nickname over the next few months, claiming well over a hundred thousand dollars in First Order bounties from sheriffs up and down the western frontier. She didn’t just stop at shooting them dead; she looted them and took their gold and weapons with her. No one could catch her or the horses she had taken from Han Solo’s stables. She never left a witness to her impressive shooting skills, just the tales and the legends and the proof in the body count. 

She became more afeared than the First Order themselves. Little girls refused to learn sewing and cooking from their mamas, wanting to learn how to shoot like Rey instead. Little boys claimed her as their hero too. The old cowhands in the saloons raised their glasses to Ragin’ Rey night after night. 

And then one day she disappeared into the dust of the desert, never to be heard from again. They said she died laughing, holding one of her pistols and sitting on a chest of First Order gold. 

That wasn’t quite true.  


	4. Part Four

Back at Maz’s bar, everyone was listening intently to Poe spin his yarns about the olden days. No one heard the approaching boot steps with spurs jangling on the back. 

“And that’s the story of Ragin’ Rey Kenobi,” said Poe. “How’d you like that?” he asked, clapping Aisling on the back. 

“It’s a good tale,” she said. “You’re a mighty fine storyteller, Mr. Poe. My mama told me a slightly different version, though, and so did Ofedya.”

“Oh really?” he asked. “How’d you come to know Ofedya Calrissian in the first place?”

A group of men dressed in white led by an aged man in black walked through the darkness; the jangling footsteps grew closer to Maz’s tavern. The rest of the patrons had returned to their own conversations when Poe’s tale was over, and the noise level was steadily increasing as cards and dice were taken out and laughter filled the air. 

“My mama took me out east to her when I was sixteen. Said she wanted me to have some proper education away from the Wild West, unlike she did. She said Auntie Ofedya was one of the shrewdest businesswomen there ever was, and she was one of the few people she could trust. I’m really out here to find my mother. It’s been too long since she wrote me, and Ofedya figured if she were anywhere, what remained of the Skywalkers would know. I didn’t know the famed Leia Organa had been the mayor out here, and I really enjoyed your tales. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you quite everything at first.”

“Awww Miss Aisling, don’t you worry! It’s wise of you to not trust a bunch of old yammerers you just met in a tavern!” said Poe. Jess nodded, smiling warmly at the young woman again. “We’ll help you find your mama, don’t you worry. What’s her name, and how’d you get such a unique name yourself?” 

“I got the name from Ofedya, actually,” she started to say, before gunfire erupted from the door of the bar. A young man at the front of the house having a brandy with his friend took a bullet to the chest as glasses shattered around them before most of the patrons even realized what was happening. 

Maz ducked down behind the bar, yelling at one of her servers to run out back and call for help. Poe, Jess, and Aisling all pulled out their pistols and started shooting at the group of black hats, taking refuge behind bar stools and turned over tables. 

“Who are they?” Aisling yelled across the bar to Poe, who was reaching behind the bar to grab bottles to throw in the faces of the intruders. 

“I don’t know but they’re certainly trouble!” he yelled back, smashing a barstool over a young bandit’s head. 

Eventually, between the bar patrons and the townsfolk who came running with what they could find as weapons, the group of outlaws dwindled down to just a handful, with fewer innocent casualties on the good side. 

Everything from then on out happened as if it were one of Poe’s tall tales. He and Jess threw more barstools at two of the remaining bandits, ducking behind another overturned table as they went. Aisling shot both of those bandits in quick succession while they were distracted. 

That left the black hats’ leader, a tall, aging, thin man whose cheeks were sallow, matching his scowl and creased brow. 

“You!” exclaimed Poe. “I thought you were dead,” he said. “You were next on Rey’s list after she got your old boss.”

“You should have died in Jakku County like we planned,” said the tall, redheaded man, whose sneer of disdain and disgust deepened. He kept his pistol trained on Poe as the two men circled each other. Jess was staring at the redheaded man in black in horror and Aisling tried to quietly, carefully sneak around to get a better angle while his attention was trained on Poe. 

“I told Kylo Ren back then and I’ll tell you again now, Hux. You might want to rethink your technique. You lost then, and you’ll lose again. The First Order died with Snoke and Kylo Ren. You’re done. Finished. The world has moved on. Mayor Organa brought peace to the valley and the desert, not you.” 

Aisling continued to move to the side of the bar, hidden behind overturned tables while the man in black moved closer to Poe, circling like a buzzard moving in for the kill.

“That woman,” the man named Hux spat, “also should have died years ago alongside her pathetic smuggler horseshit husband and her pathetic, useless, spineless piece of shit son.”

At this, Aisling flinched and Poe’s face twisted in anger, uncharacteristic for his kind countenance. 

Hux continued to spit his rage. “Not to mention your pathetic bounty hunter hero, who disappeared when you needed her most. A scavenger whore from the desert, the pride of junkyard Jakku county as the most revered name in the West? Disgusting. The Empire and the First Order never died; we survived and thrived while you all got old and complacent.”

Hux made to pull his trigger with that manifesto, but Aisling got there first, getting him in his left elbow as Poe got him in the right shoulder. 

“Who are you?!” the black clad bandit yelled at Aisling, who started to laugh. 

She kept right on laughing as she shot the man who had been General Hux in the stomach. Grasping his wound, he collapsed to the floor, blood oozing down around him. 

“My name is Breha Leia Kenobi Solo,” she said, pointing her pistol at the old man’s head. “I am my mother’s daughter, and I am your worst nightmare.” 

The gun went off, and the man’s eyes remained open in horror and abject fear. 

She stepped over his body, and out the door into the sunset. 

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to Mneme Hoshiko/bittersnake for letting me borrow Ofedya Calrissian. You can read more about Ofedya and her relationship with Ben Solo in Mneme's wonderful piece ["crave your heart (it's bleeding in my hand)"](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Fanfiction_Anthology/works/8106625)!  
> Also a huge thank you to my beta boo Desiree, best friend Amanda, and dear ReyloTrashCompactor for their editing as always, and to the amazing Reylo Fanfiction Anthology mods for their love and support. And a very special shoutout to my law school classmate who convinced me to become obsessed with Westworld...the soundtrack helped greatly in the writing of this piece.  
> Comments and constructive feedback always appreciated.


End file.
